exploremusic

Beware:  big-brained boffin talk ahead.  This is from a fascinating essay by Eric Casero on how technology is not only changing how and when we consume music but that the very experience of listening to music has changed.

“…this change in listening habits was almost entirely unintentional. I had not picked up my new iPod and “decided” to change the way that I listened to music; instead, my brain had “decided” to do this for me. I had suddenly realized in this one moment that the changing technological era had literally altered the way that my brain was reacting to the music I was listening to. On the simplest level, this was a quantitative change, in that what I was listening to was different. On a more complex level, however, this was a qualitative change; something about the quality of the actual experience of listening to music had been altered in the movement between eras of consumption. Something, at a barely perceptible level, had changed about the way that my brain was engaging in the listening experience.”

Read the whole thing here. Trust me, it’s worth it—even if it does make your brain hurt.

Once you’re done, try Casero’s companion piece which includes this line:  “…music criticism has always been influential in breaking new artists, but it seems that in the current age, this influence has become more prominent and seems to have a more direct effect on the music market.”

What he’s saying is that with so much music and so little time to sift through it all for something we like, we’re relying more and more on experts and curators and critics to at least give us a place to start.

I totally agree.  That’s the underlying philosophy behind the establishment of ExploreMusic.